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The Twelve Days of Idol Christmas – Santa-san

Song: I absolutely adore Santa-san, and its been a favorite of mine since it came out. Momoiro Clover Z’s foray into Christmas songs (though they have had some venue-only Christmas singles), Santa-san is all over the place yet somehow coherent in a way that Maeyamada Kenichi can only do. Bringing together melodies from Jingle Bells, Joy to the World and MomoClo’s own summer song Koko Natsu, Santa-san shouldn’t work but absolutely does. In fact, for combining these songs, it feels remarkably cohesive.

Maeyamada Kenichi’s composition is, as always, an absolute joy to listen to. He’s become the master of composing the weirdest songs that somehow manage to make sense. He’s also great at writing songs for a specific group, and Santa-san feels like a perfect high energy song to fit Momoiro Clover Z very well. Because of this, MomoClo’s members add a lot to the song, using a lot of energy and making it all work.

I mostly love how goofy Santa-san is. Every member hams it up while singing, eschewing things like “quality vocals” to just play up the song (the over exaggerated way Kanako sings her last solo in the song is just perfect, as is Reni asking fans to send her presents). It’s a song that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and is honestly just what I want from an idol song during the Christmas season.

PV: This PV does a great job of taking what was great from the PV and just doing it in PV form. The silliness quotient is high here, as it’s pretty much Momoiro Clover Z goofing around in a house. Momoka sings into a ladle, Reni air drums with chopsticks, all the members dress Kanako up with ornaments and garlands and a Christmas tree. A Facebook group I’m in votes yearly with the simple question: Shopping cart Shiori or Refrigerator A~rin (I’m always Team Refrigerator A~rin, myself). It’s obviously a constructed PV, but they capture the effect of Momoiro Clover Z goofing around.

The editing is pretty perfect, keeping a quick but not frantic pace. I think the slow motion works as well. The only complaint I have is that occasionally the color balance is a little weird – I wonder if the slow motion camera is part of that, as it looks strangest during the slow motion sections. However, the whole PV is a little desaturated for a reason I don’t quite get.

Still, this is a modern classic of idol Christmas music and PVs, and is probably the most fun one I’m going to cover in this series.